The wonderful Amazon Rainforest is the biggest rainforest ever, but you might ask the question: “What is a rainforest?� Well, a rainforest is a group of plants, trees, and animals that is located near the equator. The location of the Amazon Rainforest is in South America. Surprisingly it is in two hemispheres which are
the Northwest and Southwest. It’s also in nine different countries. These include Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. The average rainfall of the rainforest is approximately 250 centimeters. The average temperature is 77 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a tropical climate zone. The size of the Amazon Rainforest is approximately two million square miles. The exact location of the Amazon is zero degrees latitude, 75 degrees longitude, 15 degrees latitude, and 45 degrees longitude. Some people probably want to know how you get around in the forest.
They go by river in makeshift boats and also make roads for cars. Also they use movement in trading culture and ideas. Surprisingly, we get a lot of resources from the Amazon. Some examples would be natural rubber, brazilnut, small berries, acai, minerals, diamonds, craftwork, wood, and medicinal plants.
There are four main layers in the Amazon rainforest. The lowest layer is the forest floor. It is very dark because sunlight cannot reach the ground. No tiny plants can grow, but anteaters and others live there. The next layer is the understory layer. It gets a little sunlight. The plants grow up to twelve feet. Jaguars, red-eyed tree frogs, and leopards live here. There are also a lot of insects. The next area is the canopy layer. It is the primary layer of the forest and is where a roof forms. It is a “mess� of branches and leaves. Many animals live here such as snakes and toucans. The top layer is emergent layer. It holds the tallest trees up to 200 feet. Animals that are found there include monkeys, bats, and butterflies.
The herbivorous brown throated, three toed sloth lives in the canopy layer. It has tan fur. Surprisingly, one sloth has around 170 moths and 978 beetles living in its fur. It moves very slowly and only weighs about 8.75 pounds. Their prey or what an organism eats are leaves, shoots and fruit. The main predators or what eats an organism are harpy eagles and jaguars. One of the sloths prey is fish squid. An adaptation of a sloth is that the green algae in the sloths home. It helps them to blend in or camouflage their home. Since it is very slow and quiet, no one ever notices it. A decomposer that might break down a dead sloth would be fungi.
Food Web Created by Tucker Guignard
One organism in the Amazon is the Giant Anteater. It is also known as the ant bear. It has a nice brown fur and lives on the forest floor. It lives in South and Central America. An anteater would normally eat ants, termites, other insects, and a few plants. This means the anteater is an omnivore. It is also a meal for jaguars and other large cats. It is very humid on the forest floor, but this helps the anteater. Its body temperature is usually thirty-two to thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity and heat helps to keep them warm. Since they live on the forest floor, it is always very muddy. The anteater likes this because they walk on their knuckles. They do this so they don’t ruin or damage their nails which are used for getting away from predators. They also use their nails to dig into ant and termite nests and to make a burrow so they have a nice place to sleep. The anteater has a good sense of smell. It can smell ants and termites miles away. It also has a good hearing. It can hear ants move and work. The anteater relies on these senses because it has bad eyesight. The anteater has a long tongue that can stretch
up to two feet. They also don’t have any teeth and kill the ants by crushing them with their tongue.
The Huaorani tribe that lives in Ecuador consists of 1,500 people living in up to twenty-four temporary settlements. They have had to defend themselves from groups surrounding them. They normally live in a small shelter they have created. These semi-nomads are surrounded by vegetable gardens. These gardens can have manioc, maize, peanuts, sweet potatoes, chili, and fruit. After a decade they move on and create new ones. A Huaorani's diet consists of monkey, wild boar, turtles and tapir. They also eat plantains, bananas, cassava, and other forest fruits. The Huaorani are known for their spears. They are long with both ends sharpened. One is carved with sharp barbs. This spear is dangerous because once it enters the body there is no way of taking it out without tearing the flesh. Even though this sounds very violent it is part of their culture. In 1956 the Huaorani were contacted by the missionaries. They taught the tribe that it was shameful to walk around naked. This made the tribe ashamed of their traditions and lifestyle. The missionaries later built school and roads. In exchange for salt, sugar, and shoes, they allowed the oil companies to do whatever they wanted to with the land.
The Yanomami Tribe is an indigenous tribe. They live in Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil. Hunting and fishing is what they enjoy doing. They live in hundreds of small villages each grouped by family. Each village can contain from forty to three hundred people. There are two kinds of “groups” in the Yanomami. There are the forest people and there are the river people. The forest people are your hunters while the river people are the fishers. Only about five percent of the Yanomami tribe are river people. Since the forest people are horticulturists, they spend a few hours of their day “garden farming”. They can grow sweet potato, tobacco, sugar cane, and bananas. The hunter hunts with bows and arrows. The arrows are usually tipped with curare poison. The forest people and the river people both help each other by trading. Whatever a hunter or fisher has caught they eat or give to his friends and family. The Yanomami believe that nature creates everything. They think that people are linked to nature. Since the rainforest is being destroyed, they think humans are committing suicide. The villages have shelters called yanos or shabonos. They are built in a large ring shape. There is a wide open space for dancing and ceremonies. Around the edge of the open space are the family yanos where they sleep in hammocks. These hammocks circle around a fire which usually burns all day and night. The Yanomami eats berries and bananas but they also eat animals with good meat on them. They also use different kinds of plants to make medicines.
The kapok tree is an extremely large tree that can grow up to 100 feet. Since it is a tree, it is a producer or an organism that gets its food supply from the sun. It lives in the tropical part of South America. Kapok trees also go through the cycle of photosynthesis which is where a plant produces its own food. When you are chewing gum or you are sucking on a jawbreaker, you are eating parts of the kapok tree. We also get items such as sleeping bag stuffing, pillow stuffing, life jacket stuffing, furniture upholstery, and insulation. These are just a few examples. We get many uses out of the kapok tree, we just don’t realize it.
The carnivorous pitcher plant found in the tropical areas of South America is a vine-like plant that grows a pitcher-like object. This plant attracts animals with their sweet nectar the prey would enjoy eating. As a result the prey falls into the pitcher and eventually drowns. If you decide to look into a pitcher plant you will see many insects. Sometimes you might find a frog, rodents and maybe, just maybe, you might see a small bird. However, pitcher plants prefer insects. One more thing to keep in mind is that we do not use the pitcher plant to help us.
Right this very moment we are damaging the rainforest! One of the biggest causes is deforestation. Every day we are killing trees and plants for our personal needs. If we cut a lot of them down, then it creates a domino effect. All of the other plants and animals will die including ones that were never discovered. There will be a huge climate change that will make millions of people die. The Amazon helps prevent floods and soil erosion. Think about where all of the water will go if there is no Amazon. It will go right into cities and homes. That is a lot of debris! Some other things that are happening in the Amazon are Cattle Ranching. Cows have to be in open areas and they destroy the land. One thing we should do to help the Amazon Rainforest is conservation. Brazil has lost over 132,000 square kilometers of forest. That is larger than Greece. At this rate, all the forest would be gone one day! Luckily, Brazil has been working very hard to save the rainforest. The tribes are also helping. They will carefully take sap from trees without damaging it. One last thing that’s helping is ecotourism. This basically means tourists go to natural areas such as the Amazon Rainforest, where they learn about the place from a naturalist. Ecotourism is helping out because it reduces available land for logging. Without ecotourism and conservation, the rainforest would probably be gone.
As you can see there are so many organisms and tribes that work together in peace and harmony. When we cut down some of the rainforest, that harmony goes away. Are YOU going to change this terrible habit or are YOU just going to sit around and watch half of our species go away? THE CHOICE IS YOURS!!!!!
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